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Tuesday, July 04, 2017

The USA's Independence Day has always featured picnics and BBQs, fireworks and maybe parades—all the good, wholesome stuff seen in movies and TV shows. The chart above from Statista shows Americans' spending for Independence Day in 2016, and 2017 will probably be similar. It's a lot of money.

The chart says the average spending in 2017 will be US$73.42 (today, about NZ$100.88) per person. To put that into perspective, Gallup just reported that in June, the average American reported spending US$103 per day (NZ$141.52). Maybe Americans will spend less because it's a holiday?

But spending is always apart of Independence Day—what better way to celebrate a national day than with retail sales, right? Just I did like last year, I thought I'd share a few promotional emails I got for sales today.

First up, like last year, is the Chicago Tribune (at left), but unlike last year they managed to find a way to make it sort of thematically related to the day. More or less. This is a similar promotion to last year, but with more relevant messaging. Points for effort.

Next up, as it was last year, the email promotion from the publishing company whose digital magazine I used to subsribe to (below). Just as they did last year, this ad has no real connection to the holiday, except for the name. Interestingly, just as with the Tribune, this year's deal is better than last year's.

And finally, another message from New Zealand computer/tech retailer PB Tech (below). I said that last year's was “far more USSR than USA”, and this year's they ignore all that to reference a science fiction movie. I'm not sure if evoking aliens who destroyed the White House was really the best way to tag a sale to Independence Day, though. This year they mentioned Cyber Monday, a made-up day that some New Zealand retailers are trying to leverage, since “Black Friday”, which they referenced last year, hasn't exactly caught on in New Zealand.

The other store I mentioned last year, Martha's Backyard, now does a lot of their marketing through their Facebook Page, and the email I got from them was June 19, and not as graphically related to the holiday as these other examples.

Finally, an important point: The USA's Independence Day isn't alone in being leveraged for retail sales events. Every year New Zealanders are bombarded with ads and letterbox flyers for “Waitangi Day Sales”. Those are always even less relevent to the holiday than these July 4th examples are. I suppose that could be some comfort to Americans who hate commercialisation.

As for me, today was just an ordinary day. As I've told many friends over the years, in New Zealand we have July fourth: It;s the day between July third and July fifth. Oh, well.